Margaret Harding
President, 4 Factor Consulting, LLC
A nuclear engineering and regulatory-policy leader with more than four decades of experience across commercial nuclear power, government, and consulting.
Full biographyAbout
A specialist firm for consequential nuclear work.
Trusted partners in nuclear export compliance and regulatory strategy. Guiding industry since 2009.
4 Factor was built around the idea that complex nuclear projects need advisors who can see across organizational and regulatory boundaries. We work in nuclear export controls, regulatory compliance, and project risk, with particular depth in DOE 10 CFR Part 810.
Our work frequently begins with one question and uncovers several others. That does not mean every issue becomes a consulting engagement. It means clients deserve to understand the landscape before making consequential decisions. Where additional specialization is required, we work with experienced affiliates and other professionals to help clients assemble the right team.
We are deliberately small. The people who scope an engagement are the people who carry it out, and the work stays close to the technical and regulatory detail that determines whether an answer is right.
Our clients are engineers, researchers, general counsel, compliance officers, program managers, and executives who are responsible for work that matters and who need export controls to fit inside real schedules and real organizations. They are usually not looking for a memo. They are looking for a decision they can defend and a process that will still work next quarter.
We translate among regulatory, legal, technical, and operational perspectives, because that translation is where most compliance programs either succeed or quietly fail. Requirements written for agencies have to become approvals, permissions, training, and records before they change what happens on a Tuesday afternoon.
How we work
Clarity. Durability. Ownership.
Clarity
Know what applies and what people need to do.
People should know what applies, why it applies, what they can do, what requires review, and where they go for help. Requirements written for regulators need translation before they can guide a workday.
Durability
Build controls capable of surviving change and scrutiny.
Controls should hold up through audits, regulatory scrutiny, growth, leadership transitions, turnover, changing projects, and regulatory evolution. A program that depends on one person's memory is not a program.
Ownership
Create internal accountability and lasting capability.
The client should understand and own its compliance program. We build internal capability, accountability, and decision-making rather than a permanent dependency on an outside consultant.
Our perspective
Compliance is cross-functional or it is fragile.
Export-control decisions are made in hiring approvals, folder permissions, proposal reviews, visit plans, and supplier onboarding. A program that lives only in a compliance office cannot reach those moments.
- Serving the nuclear industry since 2009
- Decades of commercial nuclear experience
- National-laboratory export-compliance experience
- Advanced-reactor and fuel-cycle work
- Regulatory engagement experience
- ANS standards development participation
Experience
Representative Engagements
Our work spans advanced nuclear development, fuel-cycle projects, research institutions, and complex compliance programs. Clients are kept anonymous.
Advanced reactor developer
Addressed foreign national access to nuclear technology, prepared required DOE/NNSA reports, strengthened technology controls, and worked through a potential compliance disclosure. Also designed controls for employees working overseas and for international contractors.
Research university developing an advanced reactor
Built the university's nuclear export control program: Part 810 authorization work, foreign national reviews, technology control planning, training, reporting, and integration with the broader research compliance system.
Major nuclear engineering organization
Supporting a broad review of export controls, governance, information systems, organizational roles, and compliance responsibilities across a complex nuclear business.
Nuclear companies and research organizations
Advised on Part 810 applicability, authorization strategy, international collaboration, regulator engagement, program design, procedures, training, and corrective actions when compliance gaps were found.
Team
The people doing the work.
Deep nuclear-industry experience, substantive regulatory analysis, and controls designed with the people who have to run them.
Steven Bullock, M.Sc.
Nuclear Export Controls Consultant
A nuclear export-controls specialist whose career spans commercial nuclear power, technology development, the national-laboratory complex, legal operations, and consulting.
Full biography
Start a conversation
Tell us what you are trying to accomplish.
You do not need to know which regulation applies before contacting us. Describe the project, collaboration, or decision in front of you. We analyze what applies, develop a workable strategy, and help you put the controls, documentation, and approvals in place.